Using this tutorial on You tube [link] that KillaBC gave me to improve my planet making technique,,Used my own texture map made from Visual Earth images. It is looking at lot better, learned a few new techniques.

Looks fantastic to me, Ali Suppose there's a real estate agent running around the galaxy I could see about a nice bachfront property there? Keep em coming! Can't wait until you start marrying these with your nebulas!

Lunar cell is only going to be good for the small planets I do, where I need large detailed ones I am going to have to resort to making my own. Mojoworld can be good for tech and cities, all you need are good models.

Hey! If you want cloud maps, try hitting this site: [link]. He updates it daily, and all you have to do is click on the "global cloud map" link and download. If you're using Photoshop, open it and set it to Screen and layer it over your planet map...

So much to do, so little time - I haven't made any Photoshop planets for the best part of 8 months.. I really need to get back to it.

I found the easiest way to make clouds was to build them from existing cloud maps to the size/style desired - places like this provide good starting points: [link]

There is a nice tutorial by Alyn (something like "Advanced Planet Creation Guide") that comes with a Photoshop Style file in the download that is very useful as a starting point for creating your Atmosphere layer.

Thanks for the link, I have seen Celestia before but thought the maps were for that program. I think I have alyn's tuts saved on my computer too. Now that I have 2 computers side by side it is easier to work on tuts..lol. I am working on some commercial projects and trying to make planets for them. Not as easy as it looks. lolThanks for all of your help and feedback, it is deeply appreciated.